


Waking Anchor

by pixeldear



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dream Eater Riku (Kingdom Hearts), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22595203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixeldear/pseuds/pixeldear
Summary: “I don’t know if I’m on a raft, but it feels like I am, and the raft never stays afloat. I’m always the only one on the raft and I end up getting swallowed by the sea. And then I wake up in a panic, like I just did, like the sea is still filling my lungs. I can even taste the salt.”Sora wakes with a boy at his bedside, one who claims he's able to keep away his nightmares. (Inspired very loosely by Hypnos and Endymion of Greek mythology, with a little bit of Dream Eater!Riku sprinkled in.)
Relationships: Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 81





	Waking Anchor

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so nervous posting this! It's my first fanfiction in years and years (and only my second one besides)! This was originally a young-adult short story that I wrote for school based around the Greek myth of Hypnos and Endymion. I'm so enamored by Dream Eater Riku that I rewrote the piece entirely to be a soriku fanfic instead.
> 
> Any feedback is appreciated, and thank you if you make it to the end, it really means the world to me.

The water fills up his lungs just as it always does before the darkness takes him down, down, deeper, deeper… Soon, beneath the crashing waves, arms grasping wildly for anything they can grab, not even the light of the moon can shine through the black ink of the water enveloping him. Sora always imagined there was some type of spirit lurking in the shadows, constructing the dreams to pinch and poke at the fears he had. Lately, as if all his other nightmares were simply unperfected prototypes, his nightmares have almost exclusively featured his worst fears: drowning, darkness, and being completely, entirely alone.

Sora gasps awake, as if he hasn’t taken a single breath in hours. His arms are still thrashing and he begins to sit up out of some sort of instinct. Tears sting his eyes and for a moment, he does not believe he is awake, does not believe he is out of the murky, black water of his nightmare. As he props himself up on an elbow, fingers wrap themselves feather-light across his forearm.

“Sora…”

The voice beside him brings him back, like it always has. _Ah, there’s that ray of light shining through the darkness—it was beside me all along._ He always forgets in the heat of it. The weight of the boy’s hand grounds him, pulling him out of the weightlessness of his dream and back under the covers of his twin bed, back to the moonlight shining in through the windows. (Curtains thrown wide open, of course, so as never to be without the light shining in.)

“I’m sorry, Riku,” he gasps. He feels that he needs to apologize for any number of things. Perhaps Sora struck him accidentally, maybe Riku was sleeping and he awoke him. But truth be told, Sora didn’t know if Riku even slept, not really.

Riku seemed to be some sort of guardian angel or fairy or something. Almost a year ago, Sora had awoken from a mild nightmare involving spiders to the sight of a boy with silver hair and eyes the color of emeralds kneeling beside his bed. Moonlight seemed to shine through the clothes that draped across his frame. Something about the sight as he awoke triggered something in Sora and he yelped, gracelessly falling to the floor and taking most of the sheets with him. His mom had come in to help untangle him, and by that time the space occupied by the strange boy was long-since empty.

Sora cursed himself then, wondering what he could do to get the boy to come back.

Riku lays lazily beside him now, on top of the blankets as is custom. (Sora has offered him space underneath them but has been politely rejected every time.) His half-mast eyes shine strangely against the moonlight as he stares at Sora, like cats’ eyes when you take pictures of them with the flash on.

“Don’t apologize. Are you okay?” he asks, drawing closer and pressing his hand against Sora’s arm. The warmth spreads where he touches and seems to travel directly to Sora’s core. He doesn’t answer immediately, concentrating on taking in the breaths he can manage.

“I’ll be okay.”

Riku says nothing, resting his head back on the pillow beside Sora. It seems like he’s making a show of it. _See, I can sleep here, so can you._ Sora tried the same tactic on his cat once after his mom had brought home a new cat bed. His eyes tear themselves away from Riku to stare at the ceiling.

“I can’t sleep,” he says. Less an observation and more a fact.

“Everyone can sleep, Sora. I just saw you doing it.” The tone in Riku’s voice is light and teasing, but Sora doesn’t notice over the feeling of his heart still battering against his ribs.

“I meant, I don’t want to. It’s… scary, somehow.”

Riku props himself up on his elbows, silver brows furrowing down at Sora. Some loose strands that seem to shimmer in the light fall from where he must have tucked them behind his ears and Sora could cry at how beautiful he looks in this moment, how close Riku’s face is to his. All at once the breath he had fought so hard to catch is gone from him again.

“So… you’re _not_ okay, then. Tell me what it is. I’m here.” He says this and moves his hand into Sora’s easily. Sora should feel shy, shouldn’t be telling this boy he barely knows his deepest darkest fears, but Riku smiles so softly at him, like he always does when he wakes up from a nightmare. Sora returns the smile like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“I can’t dream anymore. Or, well, I don’t _want_ to anymore. I feel like there’s something wrong with me. It’s just this sea of black now when I fall asleep, and I feel like it’s getting harsher, the sea is growing restless. Like it’s going to take me under and I won’t wake up.” Sora stops, feeling silly until he sees Riku’s eyes intent on him, urging him to go on. “I don’t know if I’m on a raft, but it feels like I am, and the raft never stays afloat. I’m always the only one on the raft and I end up getting swallowed by the sea. And then I wake up in a panic, like I just did, like the sea is still filling my lungs. I can even taste the salt.”

The last bit comes out choked and remembering it causes Sora’s heart rate to pick back up. The crickets outside seem amplified, too loud outside the little room with its hanging paper stars that his mom told him were caught right out of the sky for him just before he was born. How lucky he had felt, having parents that would go so far for him.

“I told you this when we first met,” Riku starts softly, squeezing Sora’s hand. “I’m here for one reason, and that’s to protect you. I’ll keep you safe, always. I won’t let the water—or anything for that matter—take you, and I’ll never let you be alone if it tries. Not if I can help it.”

 _Without you here, I don’t know what I’d do_ , is what Sora would say if the words weren’t so embarrassing or childish or _gross_. He feels his cheeks reddening just thinking about it, and he hopes Riku doesn’t have night vision or something and can see how lame he is.

“Is there something… wrong with me? Why do I need protecting?”

“Nothing’s wrong with you,” Riku breathes with a smile. “Dreams, especially yours, hold more power than you think.”

“Well, that’s ominous.” Sora looks back up at the ceiling, wondering how long he can stay awake. Can you die from a lack of sleep? He’ll have to look it up in the morning.

“Sora, you can fight whatever power your dreams hold yourself. You’re strong enough for that, I know it, and I think you know it too. I’m just here to help. If anything ever happened, I’d be there to bring you back. That raft you’re talking about? I’m there too. You’re not as alone in there as you thought.” He shifts then to ruffle Sora’s hair, erasing the tension he had been holding onto in his shoulders.

“Why do you stay here?” _How do I keep you here?_

“You were in need; those night terrors started before I came, right? I came to help you sleep and try my best to keep the nightmares away.”

Sora nods solemnly. It’s only been a few months since he awoke with Riku there that first time. He took Sora’s hand then too and their eyes slid shut together in the silence. Sora was afraid if he said anything, he’d scare the boy away. But he took a chance anyway in a half-asleep haze and asked him if he was Sora’s guardian angel. He didn’t hear a response before he promptly fell back asleep. Sora hopes fervently he’s forgotten about that already, and hopes harder that he never heard it in the first place.

How could he say something so embarrassing?

“Plus, I like you, Sora,” Riku adds, but Sora’s only half-listening.

“Hey, how good is your memory?”

“It depends, I think. A lot of my memories get muddled in with my dreams, and dreams are easily forgotten. Why?”

“Oh, um, no reason. Just wondering.”

The blush high on Sora’s cheeks returns and Riku seems to be smiling about something.

“Why? Wondering if I remembered anything in particular?”

“Not really. Hey, you say you’re here to protect me, but you’ve fallen asleep on the job multiple times, I think.” Sora sits up then, the adrenaline from before turning the statement into a challenge. His smile widens.

“It’s tiring work, you know, trying to protect you.” Riku yawns, stretching out on the bed and nearly toppling Sora over.

“Hey, you’re the worst guardian ever! And you’re always stealing all the space on the bed!” Sora pushes back on Riku’s arms, and it becomes a struggle for territory, neither of them really gaining any leeway. Riku laughs and it rings like bells, and it’s unfair really, how debilitating his charm can be, how weak Sora is to it. Sora groans, letting him win so that Riku loses balance against the loss of pressure and half of him falls against Sora.

“Hey, do you have to go to school tomorrow? Stay home instead. You’re tired.”

The weight of Riku’s body seems to crush Sora, and he goes completely still, afraid somehow of losing the contact. The blankets have been pushed aside in the struggle and it feels wrong somehow not to have that barrier separating them. He shifts slightly to catch sight of the alarm clock glowing red in the darkness. 3:13. The thought of having a whole day ahead of him that starts in just a few hours exhausts him more than ever.

Riku’s head lays quietly against his shoulder, waiting for an answer.

“Maybe you’re right.” He has to write a note to his mom to let her know he’s staying home, but the thought of shifting the weight off of him keeps him in place. Slowly, he brings a hand to rest on Riku’s pale shoulder, and Riku turns his gemstone eyes up at him.

“Ah, I, uh, have to get up. I mean, I don’t want to, but I should let my mom know.”

Riku nods, and sits up on his knees, allowing Sora to pass. While he writes the note out on a piece of notebook paper, he wonders if Riku has a mom too. Does he just sort of float nebulously around? He wonders if Riku is just as scared of being alone as Sora is.

When Sora heads down the stairs to leave the note on the kitchen counter, Riku follows him closely, his bare feet padding along on the wooden flooring and making yawning look elegant and graceful all the while. Sora turns his head to stare at him; he wonders if Riku looks at Sora as much as he looks at Riku.

When they return to Sora’s room, back to the nest of blankets and pillows, Sora holds the blanket up in invitation and Riku climbs in after him. When the blanket is lowered over the both of them, the room suddenly seems too hot and too close and Sora’s stomach does something strange but not completely unpleasant.

It feels like a wall’s been torn down between them. He thinks back to what Riku said earlier, about not being alone on the shoddy raft anymore. The warmth in the pocket they’ve created pulls Sora closer to sleep, but a combination of Riku staring at him, there in his bed, and the thought of falling asleep only to wake up in a panic again keeps his eyes wide open. He pointedly looks anywhere but at Riku, but he feels Riku looking at him in turn.

Sora finally gives in, returning the gaze only to find Riku’s expression deep in concern.

“You won’t drown. You won’t fall asleep forever. I’ll be here, and I’ll be here when you wake,” he says softly, his pianist hands coming to rest over Sora’s fluttering heart. It seems like he’s trying to quiet it with sheer will. _Does he have magic for that? For calming a restless heart?_ But he’s too tired to form the words. His heart remains in a panic partially due to the situation, but the weight of Riku’s hand steady and sure against his chest helps in some small way. Sora places his hand over Riku’s, an attempt to keep him at his side.

“You promise you’ll be here when I wake up?” Sora asks. He’s never asked it before—Riku’s always been gone in the morning. He wants to hear it from Riku. He needs the reassurance, the surety that he’ll have an anchor.

“Promise.”

His breath fans against Sora’s cheek.

Riku scoots a bit closer then. Despite Sora’s best efforts, his heart only races faster against Riku’s palm. His hand is shaking against it. His face is so close to Sora’s. Are humans allowed to kiss angels? Sora will never know, because Riku leans in to close the gap first, and Sora’s head hits the pillow.


End file.
